Quboid wrote on Dec 10, 2012, 23:25:Evidently I underestimated PopCap's popularity (genuine, at-the-time popularity) but I believe it was far from universal and I remain baffled by what looks to me like collective amnesia over the unpopularity of casual gaming back when sensationalist media thought it was the end of PC gaming again.

I suspect most of the people who didn't like PopCap didn't play any of their games, because, ew, they're casual games.

Anyway, my point has been utterly lost and I think it mostly didn't register at all. I apologise for failing to make this point clearly.

You never had a point. You were, to put it quite plainly, deluded about the facts. It's quite a simple chain of events to follow:

1. Casual games do have a reputation among more hardcore gamers for being cheap, disposable, lacking depth, and being exploitative (when it comes to ingame purchases with real money).

2. Those who disparage casual games often use Zynga and Farmville as examples of the worst of the worst. Zynga also has the reputation of cloning already popular games and then using superior marketing to make their clone the more popular game.

3. Popcap is a premier developer of casual games, however, their games do not have the reputation that other casual games have.

4. This is where delusion sets in. You link Popcap and the distaste for bad casual games in your mind, simply by virtue of Popcap being an extremely well known producer of the most popular casual games. It is however, Zynga that embodies all the qualities you describe when you claim that Blues and hardcore games in general have always hated Popcap. This is why others bring up Zynga repeatedly in the discussion, and yet you treat it as somehow further evidence that Zynga and Popcap are linked in the people's minds, and thus, have similar reputations.

5. In fact, what is actually true is that Popcap was the most well regarded casual developer among hardcore gamers, especially after Valve's promotion of Peggle with Half-Life 2. It is precisely because of their sterling reputation and profitability extrême that they were purchased by EA. EA saw the trend towards casual gaming, and they had made moves of their own with internal studios. They saw the opportunity for purchasing a juggernaut in casual gaming, perhaps considering it be "getting in on the ground floor" as the casual industry exploded with mobile gaming.

6. And we come to today- Popcap, a company not disliked by hardcore gamers, announces that it is planning a game apparently far outside their area of expertise. Well then the obvious connection is made by gamers- EA is once again forcing studios they have acquired to make extremely bad moves. The poor micromanaging once again sets Popcap on the same road to ruin that so many other beloved studios have taken after being acquired by EA. And you, monsieur, take that to be evidence of a mental hypocrisy, something hated becoming beloved by virtue of it being the victim of something more hated. You have externalized some vague internal discontentment, lashing out without reason or principle. You wish to see the hypocrisy? Look inside to yourself.

Addendum: I've been watching a lot of Agatha Christie's Poirot recently; all of the above is best read with a dramatic fake Belgian accent.

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